Passionate sex life: Emily Blunt stars as Queen Victoria and Rupert Friend portrays her husband, Prince Albert, in The Young Victoria. Contrary to popular belief, Victoria was actually anything but Victorian in the bedroom.

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY

Think of Queen Victoria, in life or on stage and screen, and the image appears of an old, rotund widow, shrouded in black decades after the death of her husband.

Now we're about to see whether American audiences will embrace a new movie that offers a very different perspective, showing an unexpectedly sexy young monarch.

The Young Victoria, which opens Friday in limited release and expands on Christmas Day, also is unusual in its portrayal of the queen and her beloved Prince Albert as well-matched partners in both love and reign.

For that, we can thank the film's tie to a real member of the British royalty: the Duchess of York. One of the film's producers and the one for whom this was a labor of love is Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of Prince Andrew, mother of two of Victoria's fifth great-granddaughters, Princess Beatrice, 21, and Princess Eugenie, 19, and author of two books about Victoria.

"It's a contemporary love story, an untold love story," says Ferguson, who has been touring the USA to promote the film (which featured Beatrice in a lady-in-waiting role during Victoria's coronation).

Ferguson first proposed a Victoria film to Hollywood more than a decade ago, but nothing happened until she approached filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who became another of the producers. "It was a very big passion of mine — Victoria taught me to be royal," Ferguson says.

Blunt is not our usual image of Victoria, and not just because she is prettier than even the most flattering portraits of the queen. We are accustomed to thinking of Victoria in old age, when she was reclusive and permanently in mourning, as Judi Dench played her in 1997's Mrs. Brown.

Indeed, Blunt is stepping into some formidable shoes, not just in playing the queen but in following such British and American queens of stage and screen as Dench, Patricia Routledge, Helen Hayes, Annette Crosbie, Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Prunella Scales, who played old Victoria Regina as far back as the 1930s.

But in this film, Victoria is shown in the first bloom of slim youth and beauty, buffeted by the conflicting advice of male advisers and trying to figure out whom she should marry. She settles on her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg (Rupert Friend), who loves her, brings stability that benefits the monarchy and becomes a power behind the throne, sometimes to her dismay.

"It has the potential to go beyond the costume drama," says film historian Maria Elena de las Carreras, a visiting professor at UCLA who saw the film and liked it. "It's a 21st-century version of the struggle of the sexes — in costume. Any woman who wants to be autonomous is always a built-in enticement to an audience."

Ferguson agrees that the 19th-century story resonates in the 21st century. "It's very modern to see a woman in that period who is prepared to stand firm against the male advisers trying to direct her."

The duchess says she helped ensure that the film looks right, that details about dress, table settings and how royals were addressed are correct.

But is the film historically accurate? Not precisely, historians say. Albert, for instance, did not attend Victoria's coronation, let alone step ahead of a higher-ranking royal to dance with her, nor was he injured in an assassination attempt on her.

"I forgave the filmmakers because they need to have climaxes in movies," says Gillian Gill, author of the recent We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals.

One theme is true: Victoria was not a prudish Victorian — she liked sex with Albert. "It was an arranged marriage that ended up a real, passionate love affair," says Stanley Weintraub, a retired professor at Penn State and author of Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert.

"She had nine children, but when she asked her doctor how to stop having children, he told her all you can do is stop having sex. She was horrified by that idea," he says.

Gill says the gist of the film is correct in that it presents a new way of looking at Victoria and Albert as a kind of modern power couple. "It's much more like a 21st-century situation where it's the wife who has the money, power, property, position and status," Gill says.

She hopes the film will inspire more young people to learn more about Victoria.

"She is gutsy and trying not to be a pawn. Her desire is to be a great queen, and when Albert tells her, 'I can help you,' that is all true. They were great partners."

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